Sanswire's airship comms platform looks like a bag of hot air

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 26 July 2007 09:07

Opinion and Analysis

There has been a very subtle shift in Sanswire's description of the Stratellite: no longer is it a complete communications platform it is merely an airborne platform " an advanced breed of high-altitude airship....designed to operate as unmanned autonomous or remotely piloted systems at stratospheric altitudes...[and] provide 'persistence' in geostationary locations."

Stratellites, GlobeTel claimed, "can provide a superior and fully reclaimable method for operating advanced wireless communications and monitoring services. With payload capacities measured in tons, and the ability to return to its base station on command, the Stratellite provides a cost-effective delivery system for broadband voice, data and video services, reducing reliance on 'near real time' capabilities of satellites and the slow download speeds of copper based terrestrial networks."

Well if these things are so great you would have to ask by Sanswire has restricted itself to the platform and abandoned work on the value adding and revenue generating services component.

However, the company does claim to be still working on this aspect of things . "Together, Sanswire Networks and its sister company GlobeTel Wireless offer a complete WiMax/WiFi solution for our planet's increasing demand for faster, more efficient communication....The wireless communications technology was developed by Ulrich Altvater, now president of GlobeTel Wireless, in conjunction with NATO and the German military. Since joining GlobeTel in the summer of 2005, GlobeTel Wireless has been working to integrate its wireless solutions seamlessly into the Stratellite platform, providing superior range, versatility, efficiency and cost effectiveness."

Hang on, wasn't that when the first commercial Stratellite' were supposed to be deployed in Australia? Call me Orwellian, but I find it strange that the key press release setting out GlobeTel's vision of the Stratellite as an integrated communications system rather than merely a platform, issued after the December 2006 demonstration, is no longer on its web site.

They say airships are kept afloat by helium these days, but perhaps these use some hot air as well.